Chapter XII. Concerning the Professors of Natural Science. From the Same, in the Epistle to Aeschines

‘THAT the things of the gods are beyond us is manifest to every one; but it is sufficient to worship them to the best of our power. What their nature is it is neither easy to discover nor lawful to inquire. For it pertains not to slaves to know the nature or conduct of their masters, beyond what their service requires. And what is of most importance, in proportion as we ought to admire one who spends labour upon the interests of mankind, so to those who strive to get fame from many inopportune and vain attempts it brings the more trouble. For when, 0 Aeschines, has any one ever heard Socrates talking about the heaven, or encouraging any one to learn about geometrical lines for correction of morals? As to music we know that he understood it only by ear; but he was constantly telling them on every occasion what was noble, and what manliness was, and justice, and other virtues: he used in fact to call the interests of mankind absolute good; and all things else, he used to say, were either impossible to be achieved by men, or were akin to fables, playthings of Sophists in their supercilious discussions. And he did not merely say these things without practising them. But to write of his doings to you who know them, although not likely to be unpleasing, takes time, and I have recorded them elsewhere. When refuted therefore let them cease, or betake themselves to what is reasonable, these men who were not pleased with Socrates, to whose wisdom the god bare witness while he was yet alive, and they who put him to death found no expiation in repentance. And so-----what a noble thing----they fell in love with Egypt, and the prodigious wisdom of Pythagoras, men whose excess and inconstancy towards Socrates was proved by their love of tyranny, and exchange of frugal living for a table of Sicilian luxury to serve their boundless appetite.’

So speaks Xenophon, with a hint at Plato.[1] But Plato in the Republicrelates that concerning gymnastics and music Socrates spake as follows:[2]